


Kafkaesque

by Gods_Trumpet



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Derivative Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-20 03:26:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2413232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gods_Trumpet/pseuds/Gods_Trumpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham is tempted by the ripple effect. *Cancelled*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> My first Hannibal fanfiction, and in fact my first fanfiction at all in a long, long time, so I'm still sort of rolling with it. Thank you for your time. I hope I don't embarrass myself.

Will leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

 

The room had been silent for a long time between three of them- two men and a body. It was hard to abandon the corpse, and the stink of consequence that oozed from it into the air. He had his eyes closed. The water basin between them swirled red opaque. Hannibal had never let go of his gauze-wrapped hand, keeping it gently between both of his own. Will found he no longer felt pressed to escape. He felt...

He felt the back of a hand against his neck, now against the underside of his jaw. Petting him. Will jerked his head. Placating, the other hand squeezed around his.

“Don’t worry. I don’t want to hurt you,” Hannibal reassured, sounding close.

“That isn’t what worries me,” Will said back. He angled his head, as a force of habit, away from Hannibal’s voice. As though the distance would weaken his words.

He seemed to speak from a secret well of patience reserved for Will’s obstinance. “I know. Don’t withdraw from what you have done, Will. Learn to revel- we become accomplice to something greater than ourselves when we take a life. Through mortality, we partake in one of God’s greatest marvels.

“But you cannot disassociate Randall Tier’s death from you. To cope with it, because part of you reviles it, you must take it into yourself. Allow it to reshape you. You grow stronger from the exposure.”

The nausea of his guilt was joined in an awful sweep by a burning self-loathing. He clenched his jaw, teeth making a sharp grinding sound, and a half formed “You--” rolled out of his mouth. His brows scrunched deeply together. Hannibal would have him become, what? A god? Hannibal was a carrier of disease that had infected him, his typhoid apple, and yet he knew-- he felt...

Hannibal laid a hand on his tense shoulder.

“Open your eyes. What do you see, Will?” Hannibal’s voice was even, the prompting tone he used during therapy.

Will obeyed, fixed his eyes on the doctor’s face. Everything was as it should be. No emotionless, featureless charcoal skin, no grey-lacquered and all-seeing eyes. No inhuman protrusion of antlers curving towards him like malformed hands. He had expected the ugly, imaginary monster with which he had come to associate Hannibal, and instead saw a sweeter one. His apple was a placebo to the pathogen already in Will’s system. 

For a surreal moment he had forgotten how human Hannibal could look.

Hannibal was only meat, wasn't he? The figment, the fever animal, merely inhabited him.

“I just see you,” he murmured rawly. “Or, maybe I see a mimicry of you.”

Hannibal smiled and his gaze shone. “Of all people, I believe you could see me, Will. You have a magnificent capacity for perception; it is a gift that you may see anyone, and one I admit I covet of you. You should trust your eyes.”

Will could sense him like a warm and thrumming whisper against his ear. “I used to think so.”

“Not anymore?” His thumb stroked over the bandage, not even hard enough to make his knuckles sting. Lips thoughtfully pursed, Hannibal considered the thing sitting slack in his hands. Dipped his head down for it; boldly, when Will made no move to stop him, kissed it. Will’s jaw trembled. He bit down on the inside of his lip to stop it. Hannibal continued speaking.

“Sight has caused you discomfort, but has it betrayed you? When one sense fails, the body compensates with another. It is our natural process for dealing with loss. Don’t let yourself be frightened to lose your moral vision. As for myself, I feel I see you more clearly than ever.”

Despite himself, Will scoffed, eyebrows twitching downwards. “Are you offering to be my eyes, Doctor Lecter?”

His stomach knotted up, ugly with anxiety, at this simple contact. There was no humiliation in his touch. Hannibal straightened out Will’s fingers.

“No. It is better that you be confident in your own senses. I would hate to hinder your growth.” Amused with himself, he kissed the gauze over his knuckles and the vein-lined back of his hand. Washed though they were, to Hannibal his hands must still smell of Randall Tier and open wounds.

“By sparing me the rod,” Will answered rhetorically, a little too drily. “Tell me, do you spoil your other patients, or do you consider me to be like your… prodigal son?”

"You know I have always considered you to be more than my patient, or a bauble to be collected. I wanted to be companions. You and I share a sensibility. With any luck, we may come to share a lifestyle."

Hannibal leered so intensely at him, proud and predatory, that Will could sense part of himself meekly crumbling back to make room. It became difficult to remind himself of his purpose. He had a job, no matter how easy it was to liberate himself in Hannibal Lecter. Inhaling (the room was so full of death that one could not help but gasp it into the lungs), blinking as though to flush an after-image from his vision, he flexed his hand. It brushed against clean shaven skin.

"I have to wonder what you gave up, for your clarity of vision," Will muttered with just a touch of sarcasm. Hannibal sat, as one would approached by a wild deer.

Perfectly still, Hannibal replied, “Certainly not my sense of taste.”

Will wanted badly to gore him. He imagined the flesh would slough away in thick handfuls if he dug his nails deep enough and peeled. He leaned closer, swallowing; what he wouldn't give to strip his skin like acid. For all he knew, Hannibal would allow him. For all he knew, Hannibal would tell him, in the most gentlemanly possible way, to eat him afterwards. He took Will’s hand and moved it away, clearing the path between them.

He felt calm.

Hannibal had paper-smooth lips. He was concentrated enough to taste. Like spun sugar, or like alcohol, corrosive to make his mouth hurt. How could Alana stand it?

His conscience prickled with caution, lit up with danger. This was toxic. Exuding confidence, Hannibal moved his seat nearer. Hands cupped Will's jaw tenderly. Like the lights had gone off, he fumbled in the roaring of his head as Hannibal, with sure and adoring touches, worked to overwhelm him. Will cursed his eagerness for touch. He breathed deeply through his nose, the air cloyed with Hannibal's tasteful cologne and the sharpness of his own aftershave, and felt dizzy. He felt, in a sickening way, understood.

So Hannibal had succeeded as usual. He seemed to have more hands than was possible, all of them holding his face or pressing against his spine, running curiously through his hair. Were they all his? A mouth which definitely belonged to Hannibal kissed his jaw and began tasting his neck. Tilting his head back, Will let his eyes open to peer flatly at the ceiling. He was not exactly helpless, though not in control; there was a strange state of limbo through which he could drift, grasping sometimes onto outcroppings of shore and other times dragging his fingers in the river. Hannibal, worrying away at him, was both stone and water. It was comfortable here, between the lines. He could almost see outside his body.

Will twisted his neck under Hannibal's enthrallment. His Adam's apple bobbed. Hannibal descended upon him like a greedy bird, scooping up each more shallow breath as a trinket, a little reward. Now and then, absurdly sharp teeth would graze him. Will slid hands down his psychiatrist’s back, the material of his suit jacket catching at the rough skin on his palms.

Almost automatically, knowing what was wanted of him, he unbuttoned Hannibal's jacket. Hannibal stopped making love to his neck long enough to smile.

"This is certainly a breach of normal therapist-to-patient conduct, no matter what you consider me. It's... gauche, for you. What would people say if they found out?"

Hannibal's hands were below his shirt, holding onto his hips, his nose and a touch of his lip pressed at the junction of his neck.

He murmured something which sounded like, "Congratulations, I should hope," but which was very low and quiet. Will half-chuckled again. His hand had found a way to Hannibal's collar- he imagined tightening the tie around his neck, crushingly, how he would gasp and claw like an animal- and tugged the tie looser.

“What about him?” Will asked, flicking his gaze towards the fish-eyed corpse, laid out like a noisy accusation.

Barely moving away from his neck, he hummed, “He isn’t watching.”

"No, but he's mouldering on your dining table."

"Then what would you like to do with him? Randall Tier is yours now."

Will thought for a minute, all parts of himself conflicted. An idea rooted in his head began to creep forward, an idea which excited him as a clever move of a chess piece might, despite everything which told him this was not a game. He shifted out of mouth’s reach.

"Where would you prepare him?"  
\---

Muscle and bone yielded to the saw as easily as ripened fruit, only resisting him with a high pitched whine. Randall Tier's last plea for help. Hardly more than a fuss.

Hannibal watched patiently from behind him, against the cement wall, hands clasped in front of him. His jacket was long since removed, and his waistcoat half-undone. When Will glanced back to him, stopping to set aside or package up an amateurly de-boned body part (Hannibal had requested to keep what Will did not want, to make use of the entire animal), he looked radiant with pride. He had taken a sliver of raw muscle from the corpse before Will began his work, to chew it idly in respect. Randall had belonged to him first. Will had declined, almost embarrassed by the thought. 

Peeling away his glove to brush the hair off his forehead, Will looked finally at the entire jigsaw of limbs, organs, and assorted bits arranged about him. It felt disrespectful, and a sort of pity nipped at him. With an unsteady scalpel cut he sliced a strip off in an emulation of Hannibal, laying it flat on his tongue. It was stringy and metallic, the bacteria taste of raw meat. Another reminder that he could not spit Randall out.

Having come up silently behind him, Hannibal squeezed his shoulders. Will chewed. The muscle was tough and hateful. He knew he was nothing but gesture, still an unclean and unconvincing sketch. It did not feel wrong to taste what he had killed.

Swallowing, he said, "I am adrift in empathy. I thought the purpose of the exercise was to ground me, but you would only replace a slavish desire with one just as grotesque."

A hand snaked around to the ridge of his collarbones, to feel the heat given off by him. "You have a handhold in me, if you would ask," he whispered, nose poking into his curls. "Your desire is now stripped of all your prior expectations of it, your moral eye closed to it. Your urge is natural, stunning, incomparable to the grotesque; it is not perverted. The idea of perversion, you force upon yourself, in fear. And you no longer have to fear."

Their skin grazing, he swallowed again. Hannibal's outlook was, to say the least, enticing- as were his hands. He could feel power prickling across Hannibal like a static charge, and Will was standing out in a lightning storm.

"You haven't been my steadiest foundation in the past."

"The past is rarely an infallible teacher. In the past you were not the realised Will Graham that blossoms from you now. He is bursting from your seams."

"What are you offering, Hannibal?"

He smiled, skimming his hand down Will's collar. "A departure from drifting."

Will rolled his eyes. They darted around the table, to the wall, to the hand. Things seemed to have life of their own. “I know what I want to do. With the body, I mean. There are parts that were designed to fit together, a completed skeleton. I see what Randall Tier would have wanted, and I see what I can make of him. I still remember being able to think like him. Burned into me, as...”

He remembered the way death had felt beneath his grip. The skin over Hannibal’s carotid was uncovered, shirt rumpled where Will had tugged at it, and the scalpel still hung loosely in his fingers. Lucid as if it were happening, he imagined slitting his throat. The blood gushed out to him like an old friend greeting, and it baptised him. His heart was racing.

It could be more intimate. He put the scalpel down beside him and, movements careful, turned and grabbed for Hannibal empty-handed. His fingers looped into the crisp shirt fabric with a breath-like rasp. They were connected again. This time, he could taste himself in Hannibal’s mouth, as he was sure Hannibal was in his, as though they had drunk of each other. 

Hannibal kissed him with the same reverence he held in eating, warm and indulgent; it was all Will could do to clutch tight and not spill a drop of what was being poured into him. It was love, and he wanted to stamp it out. He wanted to kill Hannibal Lecter and sew himself up with the man’s heartstrings.

The air itself seemed to breathe. They separated, Hannibal murmuring something to him which sounded English but might have been in any language for all that Will could listen. Hannibal led them away, side by side, towards the stairs. Hannibal touched his wrist as a guide, trusting Will to choose him without prompting. And in that moment he had chosen not to feel Hannibal.

Slipping his hand away, he felt his fantasy blaring at him. He was hot, hatefully impulsive, rebellious and drunk on everything that filled his basin of a soul. It took most of his strength, even with Hannibal off-guard, to force him, but Hannibal’s back still slammed against the wall with a concrete thud. The breath was knocked out of him. Then Will’s hands closed over the passage of his throat, as he had done to Randall and as he had wanted to do to him. He burned low in his gut.

Hannibal allowed him to pin him there, stretching his neck out beneath Will’s hands. The grip was bruising. He made a few ragged attempts to breathe, though he seemed to relish that Will was trying to steal it from him. Hair fell loosely over his forehead. There was an obvious strain in his shoulders where he fought not to throw Will aside. Will himself stood with his chest heaving, thinking about every slight against him, while the revulsion and grief cooked inside him. Each stared straight into the other.

Perhaps a minute had passed, Hannibal’s face already blood-flush. He wet his lower lip and let his mouth hang, parted, as though trying to speak with air that could not pass. The adoration had not diminished in his gaze. He knew Will would let go. 

Every instant of horrifying love echoed in his head. Will felt feverish, insides battered as though he were the one being choked. Hannibal placed one hand over Will’s, his thigh between both of Will’s, and made no effort to pry him off- touching him only to touch him. All at once, his seams burst.

Will’s breath hitched, heat pressing within him suddenly, inconveniently. As quickly as he had begun, he stopped squeezing. His jaw, clenched hard enough to hurt, released. He slackened against Hannibal. Both of them closed their eyes and caught their breath, Will’s forehead pressed to the crook of his neck; he was no longer touching his throat, arms instead dangling at his sides. There had been no struggle, and he still couldn’t do it. 

He didn’t want to lose Hannibal Lecter. Humiliation laughed into his ear.

Voice low and syrupy, if hoarse, Hannibal hushed him, sliding his hands between his knotted shoulder blades. “You did very well. Take your time. It’s out of your system.”

His breath, which he hadn’t realized had grown so labored, slowed, as did his heart. He felt exposed, his back and neck damp with sweat, discomfort between his legs. Yet Hannibal provided a shelter, like a raincoat, a fresh second skin he could pull over himself if he so chose.

“That’s embarrassing. I promise that doesn’t usually happen,” he breathed, letting Hannibal pull them pull them so close that he could feel buttons from his waistcoat dig into his chest.

“I believe you. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Inhaling deeply through his nose, Hannibal moved Will’s head so that he could press his lips against his forehead. “Although, I am grateful that you decided you did not want to kill me. That would have spoiled things. Now come upstairs with me, Will.”

Will blinked, feeling thick and heavy. Something had sunk its teeth into him and ridden his back, out of hunger and out of love. He had nothing with which to fight it. He resented every moment of knowing, and he drank it in like nectar. He felt naked and gorged, and he was grateful.


	2. Act 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deeply grateful for the response I've gotten so far. This fic is scheduled to update every Monday (unless there are unforseen snags requiring me to delay), so I can promise not to leave you all hanging. You've treated me wonderfully for my first foray back into fic, and I hope to continue to please.
> 
> Also, this chapter starts off right away with some gay filth, so I hope I've done justice to that.

He could sense Hannibal nearby in his half-waking state, though he was still caught in the spinning and tumbling of a dream. Illusions tangled in his mind’s eye. Perching over Hannibal and staring down at him; shedding his skin; bracing himself with the cool touch of antlers. He woke at a sharp sound which he realized in the next moment had come from himself. He blinked and saw Hannibal, strikingly real and still. His arm, outstretched, pillowed Will’s neck. They were both naked, though it had happened that night by an instinct for nearness, rather than for obscenity. The place where Will lay was damp, and the sky outside, dark. It could be no later than 3.

Chills skittered up his back, little rodent feet. The sheets had been kicked down to the end of the bed sometime that night, exposing them both to the bare cold of the room. Sweat- a thin sheen clung to most of his body- only made him colder. His hair stood on end as he tried to choke down a shudder. Hannibal opened his eyes with reptilian grace as though he had not been sleeping at all. Will focused on his gaze.

“Did I wake you?” he asked, a tired slur to his voice.

“Yes. You murmur in your sleep.”

“Yeah, it’s-- vivid dreams. It’s freezing in here, would you pull the sheets up?”

Not answering, Hannibal rolled onto his side and reached for Will, dipped into the seam of his waist and followed the smooth skin to his hip bone. When Will moved closer, sighing, he was nuisanced with kisses. First to his shoulder, then all up his collarbones, Hannibal slowly traced dotted lines with his lips. He urged Will nearer, wrapping him up.

“Hannibal, you aren’t warm enough by yourself,” Will griped, despite flinging his own arms around him in the search for heat. “Pull the sheets up and go back to sleep.”

Amused, he hummed against his Adam’s apple, “I fear that would be discourteous, if I fell asleep on you. You have to go to the museum, while you still have time to stage your diorama discreetly. I can stand to lie awake.”

Will made a long-suffering noise, and made to untangle himself. Capricious, Hannibal resisted. He inhaled deeply, smelling him, and roamed his hands.

“You just said-- Hannibal, can this wait?”

“Don’t be so eager to leave.” And it was a request as much as a reproach. Of course now that he had Will, he would want the lion’s share. “I prefer not to lie awake alone.”

He blinked hard, trying to force the early waking dullness out of his mind. Hannibal made it somewhat easier. His hands were almost intolerably cool against the protected warmth of Will’s chest. He shivered, concentrated on not shying away. They slid lower, seeming to absorb heat as they went. Will tried to relax, but couldn’t fight the touch-nervous tensing of his gut.

Hannibal lavished everywhere his lips fell with the full force of his adoration. His hand squeezed greedily at Will’s hipbone, making his bedfellow twist, instantly edgy. Will tilted his head away to take a breath, stifled by the intensity. Their bodies flush, the man’s touch invaded his senses. Temptation invaded his mind. Hannibal was starving, beyond carnal urges which anyone could satisfy; Will was finally loosening to him, to oneness with him, and he ravened for it. Longing twanged a chord in Will.

He gasped when supple fingers glided over him. It had been so long since anyone had touched him, and when Hannibal touched him it felt permanent; it hit like a shot of caffeine. Encouraging, Will stroked his torso, which was so solid and felt like it belonged to a younger man than Hannibal, catching the hair on his chest with the u-turns of his fingers. Friction made him electric and, better, it made him warmer.

Without warning, Hannibal pushed him onto his back and straddled over, knees on either side of Will’s hips. The silhouette of his shoulders was smooth, intimidating. There was enough light in the room to glimmer off Hannibal’s eyes- and even if he could not see them, Will could feel his stare and returned it. Stroking the muscle over his torso, he felt his breathing. As he hovered, Hannibal rest his elbow near Will’s head so that he could lean over and meander his fingers through the sleep-kinked mess of his hair. The spare hand gloried in the skin lining his inner thigh.

Will’s eyes had adjusted well enough to the dark to notice, when he flickered for a rare moment out of their shared gaze, the bluish pattern of bruises on Hannibal’s shadowed neck. It took a moment for him to realize what they were, and why. He touched them, trying to be gentle. Revisiting them gave him a rush. Hannibal must have noticed the change in his face, like a sudden rapture, because he crept his hand up from the breach of his thigh to tilt up Will’s chin. Will let himself be lead, looking overwhelmed.

“Are they beautiful?” Hannibal asked, lips and breath only, staring down with a desire that ought to terrify him.

Skin prickling with sweat and tension, Will whispered, “Yes.”

Hannibal moved deliberately, lips burning and slow, while he worked his hand between Will’s legs. Will reciprocated, but his arms were shaking. It had felt so good to pin him, to have even the illusion of holding a life in his hands that could at any moment be squeezed out. To be self-righteous. He had been whole and powerful; more than anything, he didn’t want to kill Hannibal Lecter. He needed to know him.

“More than that. They’re-- they’re gorgeous, they--” he babbled, quietly, whenever they were not kissing.

Pushing the hair out of his eyes, Hannibal pressed their foreheads together and shushed him. Will’s breath came in tremors. “When your hands were around Randall’s throat, and around mine, how did it feel?”

“Ideal.”

He had a strange familiarity with Will’s body, as though he had long considered doing this, and vividly at that. Will rocked upwards. His feet pressed flat against the bed with his knees parted wide, as the tension twisted hot within him. He felt seared by Hannibal’s lips, the pleasant sting of his teeth. Then Hannibal was distant and the air between them was cold, sitting up and looking over him with a serpent curve to his body, while Will let out a noiseless sigh.

Hannibal tugged him up, Will climbing so he sat spread-eagled over his lap, and they pressed together nearly continuously from pelvis to collarbone. Slipped in the spaces between, his hand grasped them both.

Will’s eyes screwed shut. Their faces cheek to cheek, he could hear Hannibal growling in an unfamiliar language that played games over the curve of his ear and down the length of his spine.

Throat tight as if he were holding back a sob, but no noise louder than heavy breath escaping him, he pressed his palms flat against Hannibal’s back, holding them more tightly together. He shuddered offbeat and desperate as though his satisfaction were bottlenecked, with no way to escape. Hannibal mouthed at his earlobe and the corner of his jaw, with one hand pinned between them, stroking, and the other gripping the back of his neck. Will nudged his face into Hannibal’s.

The muscles in his stomach clenched. He made a closed-mouth groan. Fingers wrapped themselves in his hair, pulling him gently deeper. His nose bumped against Hannibal’s neck and he parted his lips to gasp. 

For a moment life hung suspended on a bead of euphoria; he was clasped tightly to someone’s warmth, to someone’s love, and for the first time he felt enveloped in it.

Panting, limbs twitching and watery, perspiration cooling on his back and thighs and behind his knees, he relaxed. He saw starbursts under his eyelids. He was aware of every sensation, the rustle of the bedspread to the slight friction of their chests as they breathed. He hummed his praises into the smooth line of Hannibal’s jaw.

Hannibal leaned back, and Will leaned forward to match him, flowing against every movement. He wanted to slip out of his own skin. Loosely, with a hazy ease, his touch slid down to Hannibal’s front, lightly around the V under his hips. Will pushed their lips into each other again, the low rumble of Hannibal’s groans buzzing all the way down his throat. Fingers which had yet to unloop themselves from his hair gripped tight again.

One hand propping himself up, Hannibal was angled back with Will across his lap. Will was gentler than Hannibal had been, patiently weakening him, eroding his self-control touch by callus-handed touch. The kiss broke, Hannibal turning his face away and breathing hard and open-mouthed, with his eyes pinched shut. A muted noise of satisfaction, the cry of a feverish man being laid at last in the cool, urged out of him. Will opened his eyes to watch his face, and his every pore was full of light. He looked uncannily soft.

He fell back slowly, sated; with a snorting laugh, Will fell with him. A real smile, teeth bared, spread over Hannibal’s face, a juvenile elatedness. Even as the gruesome prospect crept into his mind, of what he had to do once he left that bed, Will smiled too. Right and wrong felt comfortably far away. Hannibal pet his hair and placed a kiss on his cheek.

“I’ll go with you,” he murmured as Will began to shift away, preparing to leave. His clothes had been cleaned, precisely folded, and left on a chair where he could find them- Hannibal’s doing.

“No, stay here,” insisted Will. “When you see it, I’d like it to be a surprise.”

\-----

“A one-of-a-kind taxidermist job,” Will said under his breath as he approached the crime scene.

He could tell just from Hannibal’s posture that he was pleased. His face gave away nothing more than a fine edge of curiosity; but he stood looking at the reassembled Randall Tier as one would at an art gallery. His appraising glance found Will the moment he approached the exhibit. Will mirrored his gait instinctively, tall and shoulders back. Hannibal wore his scarf tight to his neck to hide the bruises. Were they still hold-your-breath-blue?

He greeted neither him nor Jack Crawford with more than a flickering nod of acknowledgment. All of his focus was bent on his monument. Pieces of Randall, forced into place on the Cave Bear skeleton. It was somewhat crude, the edges jagged- nonetheless worshipful to his achievement.

As though he were interpreting the crime scene, Will serenely shut his eyes.

Randall watched him, dark and full of life. ‘You preyed on me. I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Neither was I. I plucked you out of the world almost incidentally,’ he murmured to the flesh-and-bone display. ‘And I honored you with a new purpose. I perfected you. Your fantasy, which I fulfilled, becomes my gift and my resume.’

‘You’re very proud of yourself; you like what you did to me. When I came for you, I thought I was a wolf hunting a fox.’

‘Hannibal's fault. We were both wolves.’ He could feel Randall skulking around in his mind, ancient beast bones clicking against the floor of his skull. They were walking together now, down the museum hallway. ‘You are the flier to my new show: come and see what Will Graham can make of you, how he can pick and peel you until he reveals your core. And Randall Tier, I have crafted you, improved you. I have never been less like myself, nor ever more- together, we are new animals. This is my design.’

Jack and Hannibal watched him, waiting for him to finish. Their gazes were both intense, but while Crawford had suspicion on his mind (and in the set of his mouth and his refusal to look away), Hannibal beamed at him without moving his lips. Will felt himself puff up with pride.

He was putting on a show, and for now, Hannibal had the exclusive privilege of being the intended audience.

“This killer is… new, and maybe a little smug. Randall is his first- or, his first like this, his first attempt at creation. This is, uh- postmodernist. A museum-worthy piece, in its rightful place. He’s made a shrine to self-awareness, to himself and to the subject of the murder. They are reincarnated now. And he wanted someone very particular to take notice.” Will paced a wide circle around the beast as he spoke, considering each angle of it carefully.

“And what is his message?” Hannibal asked, his intonation perfect. Their eyes met and held one another steadily. Crawford caught them staring and furrowed his brows.

“He’s only showing off.” Breaking their gaze, Will looked into Randall’s glassy face and said in a slow mockery of his own voice, “‘Look what I can do.’”

\-----

“Jack, he sent a man outfitted with a prehistoric animal suit through my window to kill me- not that I can even prove he was sent. And the body is-- it can’t be traced back to me. I am maintaining my cover. My actions have been repugnant, but at least justifiable.”

They were in Crawford’s office with the door shut, having returned from the museum. Will stood, looking at his boss's jacket lapels as he sat at his desk, now and then clenching and unclenching his fists. He was on-edge; he had now been grilled, chewed out, and hardly given a chance to explain himself.

“Self-defense is justifiable. How well do you think I can defend you once the bureau finds out? Because I look at what you left of Randall Tier, and I don’t see self-defense. And the way you were strutting around the crime scene today. I see the work of a killer. I could imagine Lecter’s fingerprint on that body.”

“I’ve killed someone to save myself. At worst, I am a third-degree felon for corpse desecration, do you plan to arrest me? I can still catch you the bigger fish. I only need time.”

Crawford narrowed his eyes. “I have given you time, you repaid me with the biggest nightmare of a cover-up I’ve ever had across my desk. You said it yourself: he sent you an assassin. What puts you closer to hooking him than we’ve ever been?”

Voice sharp in his own mouth, he bit out, “Because no one else can do this. Hannibal is courting me. He’s not looking for a meal, he wants a mate.”

A grim, weird pause crept upon them. Clearing his throat, Will furrowed his brows and managed a weak, “I…” before falling back into silence.

“Did you sleep with Hannibal Lecter?” Crawford spoke low and fatal, and Will instantly felt ashamed. He leaned back, shoulders creeping up defensively. He aimed his head away. His eyes found the familiar pattern in the floor.

“Yes,” Will admitted, jaw tight, “I did. But for a good reason.”

“Oh, it had better be.”

He wasn’t sure what he could say to placate Crawford, and an uneasy silence blanketed the room. “So, sending someone to kill the other. Is that, what, a dozen roses between you two?”

Will chewed on his lip, rubbed his temple. “I didn’t intend to sleep with him, if that’s what you think. I let him convince me to be wooed, and maybe I shouldn’t have. But this is an opportunity. He wants to bite the lure. Hannibal puts his faith in me. I’m like a crowned pawn; now that he considers me in condition to stand next to him, I promise you he’s going to whisper all sorts of things in my ear.”

“And when he-- whispers, will it be a confession? Anything substantial, anything we can use against him? Can you promise me that what he gives you won’t be more of his ‘convincing?’” Crawford leaned forward in his seat, his face still carved into menace.

He dragged his hand over his mouth, down his chin. “I can’t. Because he’ll give me both.”

Crawford swore.


	3. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for how brief this chapter turned out, but it is only an interlude. Thank you all for your support and your kindness.

When Margot came to see him, unannounced again, Will tried to remain closed. His arms folded across his chest more often than not, and he kept his shoulders high. He really liked Margot, genuinely related to her circumstances (though, doubtless she had not found the same resolution with her antagonist as Will had with his). There was no reason she should have to be any more involved; she already knew more than necessary. People so perceptive could very quickly become dispensable, no matter how much he liked them.

She offered him a drink from the bottle she had brought to share, and he accepted politely. He retreated from her small and not entirely forced smile. She took note of the distance he kept; as though to compensate for his trench defense, she was softer and more animated. The dogs liked her, sniffing her legs and wanting pets.

Once their ‘how are you’s were spent, Will asked, “Is there any particular reason for the visit, or should I take this as an official invitation to friendship? From what you’ve told me, I’m not surprised you have few enough to resort to asking me.”

“My list of friends is as paltry as yours.”

Will smiled and laughed a little bashfully, tapping his finger on the side of his glass. “I’m sure. It is something to celebrate when our number of friends goes up instead of down, isn’t it?”

“You’re different from last time we spoke,” she noted. Her eyes tracked him across the room to the fireplace. “Did something happen?”

“Nothing important.”

“Really? You seem happier. No bags under your eyes. What could have made you that way if it wasn’t important?”

Assuming the active, she advanced on him. She stood only a few feet away now. Their eyes met in brief flickers, Will trying to avoid looking for too long.

Without having to really look, he saw her very clearly: self-control and cool face, lioness composure. But she had a starved look in her eyes that belonged to a timid winter hare, a gauntness and desperation, a heaviness. She wanted something from him. He knew the look- everyone wanted something from him. Will had himself pressed back to the wall.

“You're different too. What did Hannibal tell you to do?” The question froze her.

She made no move to dismiss him, brush off the accusation.

Margot asked quietly, “What is your relationship with him now?”

“It’s-- uh, personal.”

“By that, do you mean you don’t want to tell me, or--?”

“I mean,” Will’s tone was barbed, “that the relationship I have with our therapist is no longer professional.”

She nearly laughed at that- she really might have, had her state not been so tragic. “He loves you, you mean. We’re two of a kind, I guess. Always trying to fit the wrong parts.”

It took a moment for her to open up once more. She told him, in so many words, that her psychiatrist had advised her towards children. Will’s mouth felt dry. She would have used him just to provide her with the possibility?

Yes. She would have done whatever she had to. She needed the escape that only a male heir could give her.

“Hannibal wouldn’t appreciate your route,” he informed. He held tight to his glass but did not partake in it. “I’m learning how to navigate him. Whatever he meant for you to do, this wasn’t it. He would be affronted.”

Carefully blank and closed-mouthed, Margot stepped back from him. He tried to intimate with his face alone that Hannibal’s sphere of danger had grown with his influence. She should avoid being caught within it. Will pitied her achingly.

“I’m sorry. I can’t give you what you want, Margot,” he said. “He would consider me off limits to fatherhood. The same way your brother considers you.”

She focused on the furniture. The pain in her eyes was overwhelming; Will closed his to shut it out, but her grief and despair gnawed him. He would have liked to help her despite the risk. There had been so much destruction in his life, that the prospect of reversing it, creating, had a siren song.

Having a child. Having the child he had been denied. Old resentment slithered around in his belly like a cold and vile worm.

“I wish that I could. But I’ve lost a family to Hannibal’s machinations before. I can’t lose another, even if this one is just-- an echo of hope down a long tunnel. Nor can I subject you to the feeling. I am not safe for you.” She took a deep breath, and he could hear that her chest was as tight as his.

“Thank you for your honesty,” replied Margot, tautly.

He rubbed his jaw. “Margot, please.”

Ignoring him, the heiress aimed her face away and strode towards his front door, trying to shield herself with coldness. It did not work. She was faltering, the ice melting away below her heels, threatening to strand her in the sea. Will knew her misery as freshly as he did his own, like tasting Abigail’s blood in his mouth again. He could not abandon her before trying to throw her a line.

“I can still help you. I am your friend.”

Margot had her hand on the door, leaning against it, but she made no move to turn the handle. Tears clung to her lashes.

\-----

When Alana was ambushed by Freddie Lounds, she was already on edge. The previous night had been strange and cold, punctuated by sexlessness, the smell of her own home and the touch of her own sheets. Hannibal had been elsewhere much of their dinner. He smiled at her and did not touch her, laughed from across a makeshift wall of formality he had built while she had been inattentive. He hadn’t asked her to stay the night. For the first time in the years she had known him, he seemed awkward.

Freddie caught her in the parking lot, attempting to chat her up innocently. Alana tried to ignore her, in no mood to entertain the rag reporter’s taste for criminal gossip. There was no innocence in Freddie Lounds. She tried waving her off, and it was then that Freddie dropped her bomb.

“I know you’ve been sleeping with Hannibal Lecter.”

When she saw the smile plucking at Freddie’s lips, Alana knew her face had given up too much.

“If I'm being honest, that was a lucky guess. But, I mean, who isn’t these days?”

It took a few indignant moments for Alana to understand what Freddie meant. And as she had parsed that riddle, the old memory of his golden glowing face coming to mind, it seemed suddenly she understood everything else. Hannibal always had been stout in his devotion to him. Lips taut, she looked up and murmured, “You mean Will.”

Freddie said nothing in response, but her smile had faded. This was a sobering topic she chased, after all. “Was that a lucky guess, too?” Alana asked thornily. “Waiting to see where I’d take the bait?”

“No, that one I was sure.”

“So-- So what if they are?” She forced her voice not to crack, her expression defiant as stone. “So what if they slept together? I don't want it to be true, but it isn’t criminal. What do you think Will and Hannibal do behind closed doors that might concern you?”

Freddie was matter of fact, unaffected by Alana’s emotion. “I think they were together biblically, and I think they were together when they killed Randall Tier.”

“Hannibal is not a killer,” Alana ground out, though not with the same conviction she once had.

“Then you don’t contest that Will Graham might be?” Freddie’s eyes were wide but serious on her sharp face. “This is the- how many former patients of Dr. Lecter’s have died now? The third? I have it on good authority that Graham is at the very least a suspect. What better picking grounds for a couple of psychopaths than Lecter’s own address book?”

Alana didn’t want to listen. She would not buy into Freddie’s propaganda, take up her flag in her dragged-out feud with Will and Hannibal. She left Freddie in the parking lot.

Of course she told Hannibal of Freddie’s suspicions the next time they saw each other. He seemed hurt to hear the news, even concerned. He said that he hoped, for Will’s sake, that she was not trying to spread this defamation around. That they should offer their hands to Will in assistance, not to strike him down.

As for her hand, he did not so much as touch it.


	4. Act 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember that 'Major Character Death' warning that I removed because it was scaring everyone?

Will sat patiently for his appointment, one leg crossed over the other. Hannibal invited him inside as graciously as always, though Will found he had a new appreciation for his doctor’s affectionate smile. On whom else he graced it each day, Will couldn’t know- Hannibal was never conservative in his charm- but the idea of it being reserved exclusively for him was as pleasant as it was absurd.

Instead of taking his usual armchair, Hannibal settled on the matching leather futon and patted the seat beside him. He was less dressed than usual, shirt and sweater in shades of blue. The absence of layers made him look trimmer, more akin to the figure Will had seen him cut in the late hours of his bedroom.

Will sat next to him, folding his jacket over his arm. The way their knees bumped, shoulders brushed fleetingly, evidenced that their professionalism had been dispensed with, left for public and daytime, and not the warm dark air of Hannibal’s study. They both needed to be close, each suspended in the gravity of his match.

A few minutes passed silently while each man gauged the other. Will cracked first, following the pattern of light over Hannibal’s lips and jaw rather than meeting his eyes.

“I’m told Freddie Lounds has suddenly disappeared,” he informed, as lightly as if discussing the trivial local news. “Under suspicious circumstances.”

Hannibal nodded, smile unwavering. “Unfortunate, but not unpredictable. She never had the tact to avoid making enemies.”

“I’m sure she possessed some tact, even if she never exercised it.”

“Making her vanishing all the more regrettable, of course. She had interviewed you earlier that day, hadn’t she?”

“She had. She was a vulture, as usual. Prying, inappropriate. Rude. The interview was meant to be regarding her book, Abigail’s book, and yet she persisted in asking personal questions. Specifically, questions about our relationship, and whether or not I had any murders to confess.”

Hannibal feigned surprise, asking, “Did you have any?”

“No.” Will smiled, relaxing against a hand that found itself resting on the small of his back. “Even if I had, I’m told all of her notes and recordings have vanished with her.”

“And, did you indulge her questions about ourselves?”

“With the addition of some choice phrases you wouldn’t approve of, I told her that our personal lives had not disrupted your role in my therapy.”

“She had been talking to Alana of late. She voices her opinions on us to anyone who will lend an ear, the list of which is thankfully short, knowing Ms. Lounds' aptitude for libel. Given her disappearance, however, it would be natural for Alana to become suspicious. You may need to be more discreet in your interviews.”

“So you still see her?” It wasn’t difficult to affect the edge in his voice.

Hannibal had the decency to look offended that he had even asked. “To be unfaithful to you now even merely in body was unthinkable. In light of that, things between Alana and myself have become uncomfortable. I did not have the heart to terminate the affair officially; I have known Alana for a long time, and I care for her. I assume she has heard all of Freddie Lounds’ gossip regarding us, down to the pulp. It allows me a quiet escape, if she fails to confront me.”

His emotions were a cocktail, guilt which he knew he should feel, and purring satisfaction which he should not. Fear for Alana. She was too good to leave things well enough alone.

He needed to talk about something else. “Margot came to see me again. Not with questions about you, though. This time, she asked me to father her child.”

Curiosity flashed across Hannibal’s face. Their eyes fully met for the first time since he had arrived. As though he could see the conversation between his two patients replaying on the surface of Will’s eyes, he smiled knowingly. Celebrating this latest absurdity, Hannibal slid his fingertips along his jaw, drew him in gently until their foreheads touched and they leaned into one another.

Will chuckled, little more than a breath from his nose. “I can’t fault her. She thought I was the only bachelor she knew, nevermind that I’m unsuitable. And, neither am I a bachelor, I suppose. When you gave her the suggestion, you might have set clearer boundaries.”

“Margot is a resourceful woman, and creative, I will give her that,” Hannibal smiled, departing with a kiss and sitting back upright. “I only illuminated the doors within her reach, to see which one she might have chosen. It was a mistake to let her gaze fall on you at all. You understand why I could not permit you to be her gateway.”

Frustration hit him jaggedly in the gut, in the Abigail-shaped ache. ‘Permit.’ Hannibal would not permit Will to care for anyone else, he meant.

“I wanted to be.”

Hannibal’s gaze turned envy sharp, and Will knew he had been careless. Will’s mouth twisted. However true, his own words had left him tasting bitterness. Why should he be sorry, when Hannibal had peeled him to the bone? When Hannibal had discarded the most precious things in Will’s life to make room for his unrelenting gluttony?

He said none of this, and when he opened his mouth he did not scream.

“It wasn’t for any quality of Margot’s, though I consider her a friend,” Will explained. “I was a means to an end for her, and she for me. She would have been my door. I mean- the thought of parenthood hardly crosses my mind since Abigail, and Margot appears on the threshold? It was tempting.”

“You desired to replicate the fatherhood you felt denied; you empathized with Margot’s need for progeny. When you were tempted, why did you resist?”

“Because of you, Hannibal.”

His voice came out gentler than he had expected; the door locked behind him with a soft click. The hand at the small of his back shifted slightly, Hannibal’s eyes returning to their liquid state, melting away the frost of jealousy.

“Because we coexist now,” Will elaborated, looking out. The empty chairs seemed miles apart, compared to the intimacy of sitting beside each other. “Why should I seek to rebuild what you thrive in destroying? I've learned my lesson about fragile toys. I would only be inviting more pain.”

“You still resent me for what happened to Abigail?” Hannibal's voice had the slightest hesitation.

“Of course I do. I'd-- I had imprinted on her, and she was so crucial to me, and you snatched her away. As though she didn't matter to you. I still dream about her sometimes, and I can't bring myself to forgive you that.”

“Will, few things would please me more than to return her to you, to us; as though time could be reversed. I assure you, I loved Abigail as I would my own child. I regret her fate as much as you.”

Will raised his brows dramatically, turning back to glance at Hannibal. “That's almost worse, you know.”

\-----

Hannibal had driven them into the middle of nowhere, to a house miles away from civilization reminiscent of the one he had used to cage Miriam Lass. Will did not bother trying to remember the route. Anything incriminating would be cleaned up spotlessly with the usual Ripper precision before he could make use of it. Anyway, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to report what was inside. Not if it was what he expected.

Parking, Hannibal went into the house first. Will remained in the car for a minute longer. The house was old, roof slightly caved and its paneling crumbling from age and neglect. Grey, dust-filmed windows protected the surprise inside. He opened the door.

Freddie Lounds was wrapped up like a gift- blinded, gagged, and pinned to her seat. Her heavy, nostrils-flared breathing was cut by the occasional low whimper. She had burned herself out of screaming. Will licked his bottom lip as he paced a semi-circle around her to stand beside Hannibal, who watched for a signal of his approval.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Will murmured, meeting Hannibal’s eyes. There was gratitude on the end of his tongue. “It would have been easier to take care of her yourself.”

She twitched at the sound of his voice, flying into a renewed panic despite the unforgiving restraints on her arms and legs and the exhaustion of waiting for death.

“As much as Ms. Lounds grates my sensibilities, as much as her removal is necessary, I know my distaste for her is no match for yours. Beyond that, she was the reason, one of the reasons, why Abigail had to… disappear.”

“And- let me guess. It would be impolite to deprive me of the chance?”

A table had been laid out against the peeling eastern wall, facing Freddie’s back. Arranged as carefully as one of Hannibal’s meals, myriad tools had been posed for Will’s choosing, each one suited to dispatch their victim. Hannibal wanted to hand her over like a steak to a dog, and watch. Perhaps this was a test; perhaps he simply found it pleasurable to offer. Will closed his eyes and shallowly breathed in.

Hannibal stepped up behind him, a hand resting on his waist. “I want to give you everything, Will. It is your choice whether or not to take it.”

Will tried to keep himself composed. It gnawed at him, the nagging sense that Hannibal was right, the knowledge that he wanted Hannibal to be right. Would it be unforgivable even if Freddie deserved this, or would righteousness make his gift all the sweeter?

“Is there a wrong choice to make here? Either I squish a loathsome bug, or you do- what difference should it make?”

“The only wrong choice is the one which fails to satisfy you. If I stepped on her myself, would you be satisfied? Whatever you do here, I would hope you have no regrets.”

Will examined the table, spoiled for choices. He wondered what he would regret more, but not for very long. The decision had been made the moment he walked into the building- moral squeamishness could only carry him so far. Tools glinted under the yellow-grey incandescent lights. Hannibal kissed the bare skin of his neck. He turned his head to let Hannibal catch him quickly on the lips before he walked towards the inevitable.

His natural inclination was to take comfort in Hannibal as he prepared, for the first time, to kill for sport. Hannibal sat right below his skin. It would be disconcerting if only he were not so willing to shed his loose top layers. He was entitled to this.

He gravitated towards the rope. It felt solid in his hands, heavy and real, bristly and slick. He imagined wrapping it around Freddie’s throat, making an airtight circle and then tugging harder. He would place his boot on the back of her chair to brace himself until all the sickly sweet life had been wrung out of her. The choked little noises her throat would make before she starved for oxygen.

Will took a breath and found it came in and out calmly, evenly; his heart rate had barely picked up. He came to crouch beside Freddie, who was shaking so badly that her curls bounced. Undoing the blindfold, he found her bugging eyes bravely dry. Her pupils were blown out, terrified and accustomed to the dark, and she winced away from him. His gaze fixed around her forehead.

“I can’t say I’m sorry it ended this way,” Will said casually, weighing the rope in his hands. “But I’ll make sure you get your name in the papers one more time.”

Doing it was almost easier than imagining. It felt better, too. Freddie’s body thrashed against her chair, animal brain desperate to keep itself alive. Will held so tight to the rope it almost burned his palms; she was helpless and finally, finally he was not.

The whole affair was rather brief. Once she was evidently dead, slack and unbreathing, he let go. He unlooped the rope from her neck. The marks left behind were raw red-orange with burst blood vessels. Silent, Hannibal appeared at his side and slid the rope out from between his fingers. The accidental brush of their skin gave Will a fuzzy euphoria.

“It’s almost disappointing to have proven her right,” Will said, smiling wryly and glancing back at him. “But, it must not have been difficult to imagine me as a monster.”

Hannibal was winding the rope back into a neat coil, smiling when he met Will’s eyes. Looking into one another was so easy now, even familiar. He reached up and brushed against Will’s face, thumb stroking his cheek and his jaw.

They kissed, a great relief washing through him. Hannibal whispered, “Her imagination was limited. You have more in common with Raphael.”

Will pulled Hannibal to him, smiling into a kiss and still riding on the power-high. Hannibal hooked his forearm around the small of Will’s back; the rope found itself the lowest priority, dropped around Freddie’s thin, drooped shoulders. It was the only stole she would wear now, and it was certainly not mink.

Moving as one, they backed themselves up until Will collided softly with the wall. He tugged at Hannibal’s long grey coat, his hair, anything he could grab. He buzzed, electrified. His senses were overrun by a desire to be close to him. Hannibal breathed in sharply through his nose when Will sucked playfully on his lip, scraping his teeth over it the way Hannibal did to him.

Hannibal pulled away and mouthed at Will’s unshaven cheek, his earlobe, the sensitive corner of his jaw. “I’ve never seen you so eager,” he commented lightly. He held firmly to Will’s hips, leading them. “I have to ask what’s come over you.”

“I’d like to give one in the eye for death,” Will breathed, scratching at Hannibal’s lower back. His hips arched forward, shoulders against the wall, Hannibal sucking on the patch of neck stretched over his pulse.

“Charming.” Hannibal had laughter in his voice, and his lips made a wet sound over Will’s skin.

They melted against one another, appetites sharp. A groan only just harder than a sigh escaped Will; he swallowed another noise when Hannibal shushed him, bumping against his ear, so that he would not disrupt the reverent quiet. He bit down on his own lip. 

As ever following his own directive, Hannibal knelt down, pulled Will’s shirt loose and caressed his stomach with his lips. Will tried to unbuckle his belt. With another quiet, scolding shush, Hannibal stopped him. Will’s hands fell away and pressed against the drywall, while Hannibal loosened the belt himself, mouth closing over a patch of warm skin.

He undid the button and fly of Will’s pants delicately, as though trying to memorize every detail of look and sound. Will should have been used to this painstaking treatment, the way Hannibal savored his shape and his flesh at any opportunity, but still it frustrated him. Hannibal kissed the subtle ridge of his hipbone, always tasting him.

Will throbbed, feeling taunted and unsure where to put his hands. He was nearly divested of his trousers, which he knew Hannibal made a show of doing as painfully slowly as possible, when Hannibal finally stopped and looked up.

“I’m curious, Will,” he murmured, long fingers sliding under his boxers, up his soft thigh. Will felt one of his knees tremble. “How shall we conclude the story of the intrepid Ms. Lounds?”

\-----

“What did you once say? That if Freddie-”

“I said if Freddie Lounds was on fire, nobody in the state would piss on her to put her out. Now I feel… I feel terrible for saying it.”

Jimmy Price twisted his mouth, looking sadly at the body in front of which he was crouched. “A little prophetic, isn’t it?”

Will ducked under the tape, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes furtively glancing around. A wheelchair-bound corpse, fried in gasoline. FBI and local police were gathered around, taking pictures, examining the scene. Crawford was talking to the local dispatcher about what information they had gotten from the night guard who had found the body. He looked up, spotted Will coming towards them. His expression smouldered hotter than the corpse had done.

“He can’t be here,” Crawford barked, gesturing to the policeman next to him that Will should be escorted off the grounds.

As Will jerked away from the officer’s grasp, from the yellow tape, he hissed to his boss, “Jack-- Is that or is that not Freddie Lounds?”

The pinch in his voice was as convincing as if he had meant it. He looked confused, a little frightened, a little guilty. Privately, he congratulated himself when Crawford’s eyes softened, though the man’s jawline remained stony. Crawford nodded.

Like pulling his old skin on for a mask. He empathized with himself.

“He’s trying to move quickly. Too many people know too much.” Will pressed the back of his hand and knuckles to his mouth and moved to join Crawford at his side. “As interested as he is in me, he can’t take any chances; Hannibal can’t leave any loose ends for me to grab, or any nosy informants to rat on us.”

“I thought you said Dr. Lecter trusted you. He’s making you into mate material.”

“He does- he is, I know. What he wants to prevent isn’t betrayal, it’s… doubt. This is part of it, the process, I suppose. Systematically eliminating any of my moral lifelines. He wants to be my last pillar.”

Will fixed his gaze on the charred corpse strapped in her wheelchair, blackened beyond recognition like a badly overdone chicken. They had yet to take dental records, and had only managed to identify her body by the melted press badge.

“He’s alienating me, Jack,” he murmured. “From everyone. He’s a narcissist with finesse, incubating his perfect codependent. And if he can’t insinuate me in the right direction, he’ll leave a trail of bodies to follow, made up of anyone who tries to reach for me.”

He had pushed her down this parking ramp earlier, after dousing and lighting her up. Hannibal had found the idea funny, a little enchanting when he had proposed it. Appropriate for Will- a little vulgar. Thankfully Crawford took his contemplative, satisfied silence for haunted staring; he could feel the ghost-touch of a hand holding his, thumb wearing a circle into his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're just over halfway through the woods now. I wanted to say "thank you" to everyone for your support thus far, even though with every chapter I regret slightly more that I let this monster see daylight.


	5. Act 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for the long delay, but this chapter sucked out my soul.  
> In fact, I hate this chapter, and I would advise anyone reading this to take it with a grain of salt.

Alana Bloom was terrified. Rightfully so.

She had trusted the both of them- of course, one more so than the other, but her heart had always been out to Will's best interests. Now Freddie Lounds was dead. She regretted ever speaking of her, ever trusting them. She had practically penned the woman's death certificate herself; though she had far from carried out the crime, the guilt of it wrapped itself a noose around her neck. They had killed Freddie Lounds, and they were getting away with it.

She was in the car on the way to Freddie's funeral. More than once the dizziness of panic had forced her to pull over and talk herself back into breathing.

The funeral itself was sparsely attended, because Freddie was not a well loved woman. It seemed other journalists shirked her even in death, because none of the respectable ones had shown up. A couple of personal friends had come, several Tattle Crime employees, Alana Bloom, and Will Graham. It had taken her aback to see him, looking solemn and wrapped up in his coat and scarf. The only thing left pure of Will was his unshaven Adonis face.

The two of them stayed after the service, after the casket was lowered into the ground and a few shovels full of dirt were thrown on top. They stood as far away from one another as possible while still being gathered around the same grave. A couple of confused workers asked if they were family of the deceased, the way they had stuck around so long.

“No, I couldn't stand her,” Will admitted, sounding far off. “She almost ruined my life.”

The graveyard worker nodded and turned his head, willing to ignore him. You got comments like that sometimes. People said funny stuff when they were grieving.

Alana looked up sharply at him, feeling her lips tighten. She was desperate not to believe; as usual, Will didn't do himself any favors. As though he could sense her gaze, he looked up and, in a rare display, met her eyes. She found herself looking away. Like she had been caught sneaking.

“I don't begrudge you your suspicions,” he said to her over Freddie's body.

“If you did it and I asked, would you tell me the truth?”

“Of course not. But that would require me to be the kind of person who could do this.”

He sighed, chewed on his bottom lip. His hands were still in his pockets for the cold as he trudged around the grave to approach her. Like a deer in traffic, Alana stood perfectly still. Up close, she could see the shadows under his eyes.

“You were willing to kill Hannibal before,” she reminded him.

“Hannibal was a whole other animal. I knew he was the Chesapeake Ripper. I assumed my death was imminent, or that I would be incarcerated longer, maybe for years, meanwhile Hannibal would live free to kill again. I was... desperate. Vengeance-hungry. Why should I have killed Freddie Lounds, other than that she was an annoyance?”

He sounded soft, rueful. Against her better judgment, she found in her gut that she believed him. But then again, she had always believed Hannibal.

She bit her lip. “What am I supposed to think, Will?”

Will shook his head, aiming his line of sight back at the half-buried pale cream casket. With a shrug, he murmured, “Ask Jack. Tell him I told you to. He might be able to give you some more trustworthy illumination than I would. 

“I am deep undercover. Maybe too deep. I may-- I hate to ask this of you, but I may need your help. I’m not considered reliable. I may need you to blow the whistle in my stead, and soon.”

There was a moment of quiet in which she shivered against the unseasonable cold.

“So.” Alana kicked a bit of loose grave dirt out of a need to fidget. “You and Hannibal. Usually 'undercover' doesn't entail anything so literal.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

He waited a moment and then with real curiosity, his tone more light, reminding her of the way Hannibal had often spoken to her, he asked, “Can I ask, what is it that you think about this?”

Mirroring his movements almost by accident, Alana turned towards the six-foot hole and shoved her hands in her pockets. “I think that Hannibal is dangerous,” she said.

“Interesting theory.”

\-----

They sat with their legs entwined and their shoes off. Meeting in Hannibal's office had merely become a convenience. Both of them were down to one layer, and they spoke in murmurs so that, had anyone else been in the office with them, no one else would have been able to hear. They looked at each other, or else out at the room, watching the same imaginary landscapes painted across the walls.

Hannibal feathered the knuckles of Will's hand with kisses, listening to his soft, brackish baritone.

“She's going to start poking around, with or without the FBI. Freddie was a bad idea.”

“Would you rather I had let her go?” Hannibal was teasing him, he knew, but Will couldn't help but pull an unpleasant face.

“You know what I mean. We've been too indiscreet.” His other thumb stroked Hannibal's jaw. “Indulgence is going to get us in trouble. We're walking on hot embers, and eventually our rubber soles won't be able to protect us.”

There was silence, hesitating over the conundrum of Alana Bloom. Nobody wanted to see her hurt.

“I hadn't wanted to leave so soon,” Hannibal sighed, straightening up.

He continued to hold Will's hand in his lap. Disappearing would be unavoidable, Will understood. He had understood for a long time, but always put the notion off for later. Hannibal could only live the decadent life he had chosen as long as his illusion remained intact, never inconvenienced. He would escape like smoke from a jar; all he needed was time. Selfishly, he wanted to keep Hannibal here with him.

“You may not have time to leave. She has some serious reasons to suspect you... All anyone would have to do is look in your refrigerator. Or your basement.” Will's tone was dry and light. He somewhat disapproved of the cannibalism still, on principle, but as the days went by he began to find fewer qualms with Hannibal. It was- he didn't want to say 'fun.' 

“If she gets too close, what will you do?” Will asked, Hannibal giving a light squeeze to his hand.

“What will you do? I will not wipe away your indiscretions with Alana myself, remove the responsibility from your shoulders. If we must have time, you must make time.”

He knew what Hannibal wanted. Time would come at a price.

“I don't want that.”

“Don’t you?” Hannibal pet his hair, slow and soothing. “Do not believe I would mistake your actions for clumsiness, Will. You would not have stirred Alana’s doubts in me to action if you had not predicted the consequences, and deemed them acceptable. You were willing to sacrifice her, or sacrifice me.”

Uncertainty fluttered in Will’s chest. “No.”

Hannibal smiled at him, that smile so rich and compelling that it made his heart sick to see, and murmured, “The cattleman does not want to slaughter his spring calf, but the world demands veal. Understand, that I care for her as deeply as you do. As much love as we feel for her, you cannot have the both of us. You must do what you would least regret.”

\-----

Will pounded on Alana's door, breathing heavily as though he had run all the way there. Nervous sweat beaded on his brow and his neck under his scarf. She answered the door, flung it open with a startled look- he had interrupted her, probably during a meal. That was alright.

“I'm sorry,” he gasped, pushing his way inside. “I should have called ahead but-- I didn't want you to panic.”

“Will, calm down.”

The door swung shut behind her, trapping them inside. Alana was holding it together well, considering how ominously he had barged into her home. She led him inside to the kitchen, where a dinner plate had been abandoned on the counter with an assortment of pleasant greens on its face. She splayed out her hands on the counter and leaned over it, staring him full in the face. He avoided her gaze.

“Tell me what's going on. Did something happen to you?” Will wanted to wince; of course she wasn't thinking about her own welfare first.

He rubbed his chest, pained from breathing so hard in the cold air. “It's Hannibal. I'm sorry. I let it slip that we spoke at the funeral, and he caught on. I didn't mean for this to happen, but he-- I'm sorry, Alana.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth and froze like that, holding back the fear and bile in her throat. She blinked hard, nostrils flared, clenched her fist and nodded. This was the end.

“I don't know when he's coming for you, but we need to get you out of here. Away somewhere. No FBI. Hannibal would be counting on that, once he knows you've disappeared.”

“I'll go and pack something quick,” she offered, her voice shaking. For her sake, neither of them acknowledged it.

Alana disappeared up the stairs. Will wanted to sag, knowing Alana's own distress, her fear and anger. It was a testament to her strength that she had kept such a level head. She deserved better. He ran his thumb flat against the hideous blade in his pocket, wondering if, perhaps, he wouldn't have to do this after all. Perhaps he really could spirit Alana into the night.

But this was what he had to do. This was what both of them wanted. He had to consider the bigger picture: the two of them like a pair of stars, unstoppable forces circling each other. Around them was only void, peppered with unimportance and moonrock. She would have to be a necessary sacrifice.

She returned, carrying a light travel bag with all the essentials she could grab in a few minutes' time. She swallowed a few times, throat sticky and dry.

Will jerked his gloved hand out of his pocket. He had been absentmindedly fingering the knife. “If you want to get a head start, you need to invent a valid excuse for you to be gone, good enough that Jack won’t be suspicious. They don't know I'm here, I hope.”

Following his instructions almost without thinking (god, how much she must trust him), Alana ran over to the phone and dialed Crawford's number. He was tempted to throw away his entire plan then, hide Alana away. The idea of pressing a knife to her throat and forcing her into the woods to die made him excited and sick. He could save her, couldn’t he?

She looked back to him, looked him up and down; her eyes stopped on his middle. If she had been blanched before, her face now was the same off-beige as her walls.

A stone dropped into his gut when he realized that Alana had noticed the outline of the handle in his jacket, its end poking out. She was caught by the phone now, with no escape. If she darted, Will would be faster. All she did was to turn around so that she could not see it anymore. She made no move to run or scream, or even redial for help from 911; she simply hung up without a word.

Alana put the phone down on the receiver and slowly turned around to face Will, who had not quite finished panting. He could not slow his own heartbeat. The sight of her face, eyes shining with the first signs of tears and eyebrows minutely furrowed, only made his heart beat faster. She didn't even look at the knife in his hand, an unpleasant and curved thing that nestled in his fingers as though they had been made for each other. He wasn't allowed to lose his nerve.

“I guess this is the part where you kill me, right?”

He knew that was his purpose for being here, but to hear the words fall devastating from her lips nearly keeled him over. The tension had bunched up in his stomach, his chest, making his heart hammer for relief. He remembered kissing her. She had been soft and forgiving and fenced in with barbed wire for his own safety. He tried to remind himself of how welcoming Hannibal had been.

“How deep undercover is murder, Will? How many people are going to die between you and Hannibal?” she bit out, like a caged animal. “Are you really undercover anymore?”

“I didn't lie to you.” Alana was about to say something, her eyes scrunching up in disbelief, when Will cut her off again. “Not entirely. I'm- I'm supposed to be undercover; and I'm too deep in him. I can't lose him. I’ve come so far. You have to understand how he really is; you've barely gotten a taste. It's like swimming in a pond all your life and being dropped in the ocean. And we agreed…”

“I really don't want to do this,” said Will tightly, his voice threatening to break any moment. “I have to, now. Knowing that you know. Hannibal convinced me to clean up my mess. It would be easier for him, just like he did with Abigail. I thought it wouldn’t be so hard...”

Alana had begun crying, fat tears streaming down to her chin and terrible shakes in her shoulders. He made no move towards her. “You two... are perfect for each other, aren't you? I don't know how I didn't see it.”

Behind them, the phone rang and went unanswered.

\-----

Crawford picked up the phone and was immediately bombarded with frantic sound. “Jack,” the electric-garbled voice on the other end said, “this is important.”

“Will?” He never called. Crawford wasn't sure until now that he had it in him to make calls.

“Is there any way we could get our hands on a fresh Jane Doe?”

“How fresh are we talking?”

“Extremely.”

“I'll look into it. Hannibal?”

“Hannibal. I need to bring him a pig's heart.”


End file.
